A memorable encounter with a polar bear

A polar bear is less than two metres from me in the middle of the tundra.

Even in my wildest dreams, I’d never have imagined such a scene.

He – well, she, since she’s a female – and I – well, we, since I’m with a small group standing at the back of a huge buggy. Here we are, east of the town of Churchill on the shores of Hudson Bay.

Back to Nanuk (the Inuktitut word for polar bear). She stands with her two front paws resting on our all-terrain vehicle. We absorb her calm, and no one dares say a word. And apart from Nanuk’s breathing, I can only hear the clicks of the cameras around me.

For my part, I regret having taken only my telephoto lens, which has a minimum focus of 1.80 metres. No way of getting a sharp image! I’m still too close to Nanuk, even on tiptoe! How could I have imagined taking a close-up of a polar bear with a wide-angle lens? And ever since that memorable encounter, I’ve been carrying around a panoply of lenses…

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